After working for hours on planning this year’s Halloween party – a kid friendlyHalloween party, thanks to his own inability to say ‘no’ to Peter’s puppy eyes – Tony is more than happy to welcome a distraction. Especially when that distraction comes from Loki.
Spinning around on his stool to face the god, he reaches up quickly to wrap a hand against the back of his neck, pulling him down into a deeply passionate kiss, nipping teasingly at the other’s lip before pulling back just slightly to murmur huskily, “Treat. Definitely treat. And if you ask nicely, I might even feed you some of your chocolates later.”
Loki, ever competitive, ever impish, bites back all the harder, but provides enough tongue into the kiss to apologize for his roughness.
He pulls back only eventually, heavy-lidded pale eyes exploring Tony head to toe before he purrs,
“I don’t like chocolate. At least, not the mass-produced chain store variety. Get me hand-made chocolate whose cocoa powder I can still taste. Get me candied fruits from exotic climes. Work for me. I am well worth your effort.”
.___. my blood sugar is high, my throat is really sore, i have had a migraine every day since october…..6…? no matter how much i sleep i’m exhausted, and i think i have another cold.
//Ooookay make that a stomach virus. And every time I have a stomach virus there’s about a 60-70% chance of going to the hospital and being admitted, for me, because of T1 Diabetic ketones, so uh. Hold a good thought or prayer for me? Might be out of commission for a bit.
A shaky, out of focus picture is received from an unknown number, and it shows a series of runes burned into a thin, alarmingly pallid forearm. A split second later, the phone rings.
“Hi, um, it’s- fuck, you d-don’t actually know my name- I-It’s hobbit, I got your number from Cas’ phone-”
There was a long pause as she fought for breath.
“Those runes, a-are they a-ancient Norse? I-I-I think this w-witch might be Asgardian. I kn-know you don’t owe me shit, but can you t-tell me what to do? I-I think it’s f-freezing me slowly.
Loki indulges himself in a luxuriant eye-roll; he has already deciphered the runes, which are, despite the nasty and alarmingly rapid effects they have, fairly rudimentary: go figure, of course a human would tamper with them, and have no clue how to reverse their effects.
When the phone rings, he strives to get a word in edgewise, and gestures at the air for poor Bernadette to hasten her words.
“Yes, yes, they’re Norse runes, and lucky you, I’m particularly well-versed in ice magic, given that I’m a Frost Giant.”
He decides, on some rare whim of compassion, to spare her the exact truth: that she’s an idiot.
“I can meet you if you’re near Wakanda, but if you’re not, which I suspect, listen closely … oh blast, you know. Move. Literally. Move about as much as you can. Jog in place, flail your arms. I’m going to just cast a teleportation spell and come to you. You won’t be able to learn the spell fast enough. Also, the sight of you looking like a drunk marionette will amuse me.”
He snatches some chalk from his desk drawer, shoves stacks of paperwork and various vibranium weapons aside, and draws a large circle. He hastens to draw startlingly well-rendered Runes around its perimeter. Then he frantically murmurs a watery, fluid incantation.
He appears in a blast of green and gold mist inside the Winchester Bunker.
“Hobbit. I’ve arrived. I do hope your hunters are muzzled.”
At the first touch, Tony flinches, a quiet whimper escaping him as terrified, grief filled eyes blink unseeingly in the dimly lit dark of the room. It is the persistent gentleness that finally draws his focus back to the present, his gaze sharpening as it settles on the Trickster god.
“Loki,” he breathes, the god’s name falling from his lips with all the relieved hope and reverence of a prayer before he’s all but throwing himself at the other in a desperate need for the comfort he offers.
He sobs brokenly as he curls into the god’s chest, hiding himself from the world and his nightmares, finallyallowing himself to actually grieve, knowing and trusting that he’s completely safe in Loki’s presence.
He’s not even sure how much time passes before he quiets once more, exhaustion settling in in the aftermath, though he refuses to let go, instead trying to hold on even tighter.
“Stay?” he begs weakly against his chest, unable to bring himself to look up to meet the god’s gaze, as if afraid of his plea being rejected. “Please? Just… stay with me? I don’t want to be alone…”
“You needn’t ask,” Loki half-reassures, and half-chides. “One moment, love. Let me get into the bed.”
He disentangles himself gently, keeping a hand in Tony’s, maintaining a lifeline of contact with the physical, the present and the safe. He remembers how crucial it was to grasp hold of something, anything, to convince himself that there would be an end to the agony and the isolation.
He makes full use of his long limber frame, to curl like a nautilus shell around his lover, and provide him a living nest in which to burrow.
“What you must do, is breathe. That is all … breathe, and listen to my voice. There is nothing else. Nothing, but your breath, and my voice.”
His words are hypnotic, woven with the quelling power of Seidhr, a web of tranquility spun over Tony’s frantically firing synapses. Loki waits for Tony’s breathing to deepen, before he ventures, very softly,
“When you wish to tell me what you saw, in your dreams … I will listen.”
A desperate whine escapes him the moment Loki starts to move away from him, brown eyes seeking out green for reassurance even as Tony clutches tightly onto the offered hand. It’s only when they’re both laying down, and he’s able to hide in the safety the other provides, that he even remotely starts to calm once more, even as he still faintly trembles with the leftover adrenaline from the nightmares.
He sucks in a deep breath at the other’s instruction, though the release is much too quick to be beneficial toward calming him once more. He breathes a quieter whine of frustration then, trying to press even closer to his lover despite already being about as close as they can possibly get. He listens intently to Loki’s words, and slowly his trembling begins to fade as his breath steadies to match the god’s.
The last, though, has him shaking his head in stubborn defiance. He doesn’t want to talk about it, or even think about it. He knows he should, though, having learned that much from finally seeking the therapy he’s desperately needed for years, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
He’s quiet for several minutes, just soaking in the comfort of his lover before he finally manages to speak. “Everything… All over again, back to Afghanistan,” he admits quietly. “Only… twisted. People who weren’t there suddenly are, usually replacing people who were. Like Bruce is there instead of Yinsen… and Raza is replaced by Steve, with his team being there with him…”
A bitter, choked laugh escapes him at that, shaking his head as he continues, “Almost every time I’ve nearly died, or when I’ve nearly got someone else killed, or failed to protect them… It’s always himnow. Ever since Siberia, when he left me for dead.”
“All I can think of now is what if he hadn’t held back in Germany? After my dragging Peter into that fight that I had no business bringing him into in the first place… What if Rogers or one of the others had fucking killed him? I mean, hell, Rhodey was nearly killed in the fight, and it’s only with my tech that he’s able to even walk at all now. If anything had happened to the kid…”
Loki guides Tony slower still onto his side. He knows nothing, nothing, of the startlingly progressive human comprehension of mental illness, though he suffers from so many of his own. He only knows that warriors feel ashamed to confess that the sight of too much blood and viscera, the robbery of too much personal dignity, the debasement of choice and control. He only knows that Tony is a warrior, and so, in his own cunning way, is he. So it is with that shame, which somewhere within himself he knows is misplaced, that he empathizes.
When dark eyes seek his own, pale and verdant, the eyes of the one so often called “Liar” hold fast with a promise of partnership in darkness.
“It is alright,” he voices that promise, very softly. And then, when Tony refuses to voice his terrors, “And that is alright also. Only do so eventually. Even if it is years from now.”
He knows the night will not even be over before Tony spills over his confidence.
Because Loki knows how desperately he wishes someone would have offered to listen to him.
And no one ever did.
No one.
Tony stumbles over his own eagerness to share. And Loki smiles, just slightly, while stroking his hair in mesmerizing rhythms. He does not interrupt, save to murmur an occasional “mm” or “mhm” or “aye.”
“ … the loss of a comrade in arms … is grievous. It is an open wound, which lags in closing. And you must tend to it constantly, so that it does not become infected over the long period that it takes to heal. It is particularly keen for you because Rogers is … well. He personifies, represents, all that your father admired in a man, and never granted you.”
Loki thinks on Odin, and on Thor. There are many differences. But the similarities are keen enough that, again, he wields personal insight.
He speaks no more, and kisses the top of Tony’s head. Tony, the allegedly invincible.
icyxmischief 